Perhaps the cost of a Tibetan shepherding dog from the Himalayas hasn't been on the top of your list of concerns. Maybe that should change. Consider the consequences.

As you know, communism's philosophy is that everyone is equal. However in all the governments of the kind that I have studied, some citizen's seem to be more equal than others. There's always a way for the rich to get richer and the poor to get children. Yes I stole that from the 1920's song Ain't We Got Fun. Not long ago with a government fueled financial flame, fortunes of some were increasing at a rapid pace. The new elite had to find symbols with which to illustrate their new position in life and also to be sure they were identified as more special than the other newly rich. Or should I say nouveau riche ?

In the meantime the Chinese powers-that-be deigned to help fuel the United States government's desire to visit faraway places with our young men bearing weapons and our older ones bearing gifts of money for people we barely know who care little about our welfare. Take a deep breath. While we alternately build and burned nations, our debt instruments were being purchased by foreign governments not necessarily sympathetic to our way of life.

As is the custom for economic cycles, China's has begun to fall as it rose, leaving luxury cars, watches, liquor and yes, Mastiffs on the auction block to the not so high bidder. The once coveted animal purchased for as much as $2 million last year suddenly has so few buyers that they are being hauled away for conversion to food and imitation leather.

With their economy no longer soaring, there's been widespread speculation about whether they might ask us for their money back. Let's put the U.S-China debt in perspective. They hold about $1.2 trillion compared with U.S. citizen's ownership of approximately $959 Billion according to the Federal reserve.

Among far-flung governments owning our debt (loaning us money) are the United Kingdom , Brazil and dozens of others. Although we now owe our putative ally Japan more than any other, China is still in an extraordinary position of leverage when it comes to the future of our United States. In this interconnected world we do indeed need to consider the consequences of the relationships between Mastiffs and Money. Think About It.

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